This is a pretty interesting idea that I am doing my best to follow.

The powerpop band Shake Some Action! was becoming a bi-coastal band when bassist Gary Miller moved to North Carolina (and left his essential-reading Seattle Powerpop Blog to die a slow, unfortunate death). Miller and the band's frontman, James Hall, were working on the band's third record together on both coasts and blogging about it as the went along. It was with Hall here in Seattle and Miller in NC.

They were posting videos and mp3s and such to their blog when they would have something to share, including the finished song. I was a little saddened when I tried getting caught up (after falling behind miserably on the project) and saw this note from Hall from last week:

It’s fair to say that the last song, Fire and Ice, triggered some fundamental changes in this project.

Firstly, Gary and I came to the realization our musical ideas weren’t as compatible as they once were, so SSA has reverted to a solo project again, as it was for the first record.

Secondly, it occurred to me that my contributions so far had a recurring theme of elements – Touch the Sky, Fire and Ice – that I wanted to explore further as some sort of theme throughout the record. What came to mind was exploring the idea of people’s apparent indifference to climate change – that maybe by the time everyone’s satisfied it’s actually happening it’ll be too late to do anything about it.

Maybe human civilization has come and gone many times before and on some deeper level we know that if climate change wipes us out, human life will always re-emerge through evolution. Or maybe we’re all just narcissists . . . .

How do I take those ideas and make power-pop songs out of them?

Watch this space . . . . .

I like both Miller and Hall an awful lot, so it's unforunate the partnership doesn't look to be continuing but I do appreciate the almost-complete transparency that's being put into this project.

You can follow along and watch the third Shake Some Action! record being made in real time at their blog: shakesomeaction.net/blog. They have three finished songs available now: "Fire and Ice," "I Get Tongue Tied" and "Touch the Sky".

Here's a clip of James Hall playing the guitar and vocal tracks from "Fire and Ice":